Texas poised to pass bill allowing guns on campus (Moody: for sale, crime rates)

[John26]

Originally Posted by RedJacket

You act as though TX is some other country.

In some ways it is.

[getmeoutofhere]

I have yet to see anyone explain in any meaningful way why college campuses are so much different from other places.

[Crosstimbers Okie]

Originally Posted by getmeoutofhere

I have yet to see anyone explain in any meaningful way why college campuses are so much different from other places.

It's to "save the children." No departure from common sense or violation of rights is too much when the goal is to "save the children."

[getmeoutofhere]

They aren't children. They are adults. In the case of CHL holders, they are 21 years of age.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by RedJacket

When it comes to illegals, I'm definitely on your side. Fair enough?

On that one, yes!

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by Rakin

I guess us old timers are the only ones who remember Luby's, Columbine, Virginia Tech, etc. Might have made a difference if someone involved was armed enough to protect themselves and others.

Exactly.

Ever watch the documentary on Charles Whitman and the UT Tower ? Initially, the only ones who could shoot back were armed citizens. Of the 2 guys who took out Whitman, if I recall one was a citizen.

Yep, and you are correct, Rakin. Initially, it was armed citizens of Austin who were the only ones with the means to fight back in a consequential way. There were no SWAT teams in the day, and many policeman went home to get their deer rifles (or else got them from gun shops on a temporary basis) because their small arms were next to useless.

And yes, the guy's name was Alan Crum (a civilian employee of the University book store) who was one of those who went onto the Tower deck itself.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by jluke65780

As a college student; I strongly disagree with this. We already have too many idiots shooting up people at TSU; we don't need students walking around with guns. I'm all for gun ownership, but not on campus. How about enacting better security and safety policies instead.

We are not talking about high school teenagers though, Jluke. We are talking about adults and if they have a license to carry, it is because they have passed the background check and profiency test to get it. They are not the ones to worry about (although they may be the ones that save someone else).

The ones to worry about are those who are going to carry and use anyway, no matter what safety policy is put in place.

[ScoPro]

Originally Posted by Rakin

I guess us old timers are the only ones who remember Luby's, Columbine, Virginia Tech, etc. Might have made a difference if someone involved was armed enough to protect themselves and others.

Ever watch the documentary on Charles Whitman and the UT Tower ? Initially, the only ones who could shoot back were armed citizens. Of the 2 guys who took out Whitman, if I recall one was a citizen.

Didn't need to watch the documentary, I was there.

Two cops & the civilian Alan Crum took out Whitman. Crum went one way around the deck, saw Whitman in the corner & fired a revolver shot to distract him. From the other direction, Officer Houston McCoy shot Whitman in the head with his riot shotgun while Officer Martinez emptied his .38 Special service revolver at him. Then Martinez grabbed McCoy's shotgun & pumped some more rounds into the sniper, who was probably already dead.

Martinez got most of the credit from the media & the promotions, McCoy just faded away. Crum went back to work.

My own eyewitness memories of the Whitman Massacre:

I was there watching it from the NE corner of 21st & Whitis (the Dobie Mall building and the Ransom Center hadn't been built yet), which was a small parking lot at the time. The roomie & I walked out there after eating lunch in the Holiday House which fronted on the Drag. While eating, we had seen the ambulances howling up the street & wondered what was going on.

We heard a few "booms", then somebody yelled at us to get down...that "they" were shooting people from the Tower. Crouching behind a car, we could clearly see Whitman leaning over the parapet taking aim & firing downwards. Most of the time it was a loud "boom", but once in a while we heard a rapid "pop pop pop" - when he used his smaller M1 carbine.

After a short while we could hear lots of return gunfire coming from nearby buildings & apartments. Hundreds of rounds were going off, so it sounded like a big firefight - similar to the 'Nam newsclips on tv. We could see the ricochets knocking sprays of stone off the parapet wall. That's when he ducked down behind the wall and started shooting through the drain spouts. A small Cessna plane made a pass around the Tower, but veered off sharply - that's when Whitman fired at it (supposedly hitting it once).

This went on for a while longer, while some of us speculated that the shooter (s) would jump off the Tower to end it. Then all of a sudden we saw a white flag being waved above the wall. Like a bunch of idiots, hundreds of people, including us, rushed up to the Mall. By the time we got there, the dead & wounded had been removed by brave individuals under fire. There were numerous pools of blood all over the area, and the crowd meticulously avoided stepping in them. Next to the ground floor exit in the west side of the Tower the crowd was pretty thick. Some random sights there: A Daily Texan reporter with his notepad, press card...wearing a steel army helmet...a Texas Ranger holding upright a Thompson submachine gun...a student sitting up on the wall who shouted "Let's hang him when they bring him out" (didn't know he was dead at the time). Unknown to us, the bodies from the Tower were removed from the east entrance,

After an hour or so, there wasn't much to gawk at, and the stunned crowd thinned out, so we went back to our apartment and turned on our tv to watch the news reports. That's when we heard the well-known local news anchor, Paul Bolton, choke up when his grandson's name was read from the list of the dead. Remembering that personal tragedy still brings tears to my eyes. That evening we went down to a packed Scholz's and got drunk.

Afterwards there were no public memorial services, nobody rushed in counselors, no calls for gun bans....no nuthin' except very ugly memories.

[RedJacket]

That was indeed a sad day for Texas. Whitman was messed up big time. I recently read where half the states aren't complying with a post-Virginia Tech law that requires them to share the names of mentally ill people with the national background-check system to prevent them from buying guns.

We have plenty of laws on the books to prevent another Whitman/VT massacre, but it doesn't do a bit of good if they're not enforced.

That's what worries me when it comes to putting more guns in the hands of more people.

[Lucidus]

Originally Posted by RedJacket

That was indeed a sad day for Texas. Whitman was messed up big time. I recently read where half the states aren't complying with a post-Virginia Tech law that requires them to share the names of mentally ill people with the national background-check system to prevent them from buying guns.

We have plenty of laws on the books to prevent another Whitman/VT massacre, but it doesn't do a bit of good if they're not enforced.

That's what worries me when it comes to putting more guns in the hands of more people.

Anyone with a history of mental illness cannot get a CHL in Texas. The new law allowing people with CHLs to carry on college campuses will not change that.